Teen's family: 'She was a gifter'

Mar. 20, 2013

A diver searches Friday for the body of Lyle Eagle Tail in the Big Sioux River below the falls. Eagletail and 16-year-old Madison Wallace dove into the water Thursday to rescue 6-year-old Garrett Wallace who fell in but emerged unharmed. Madison's body was found below the falls on Friday afternoon. / Elisha Page / Argus Leader

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Madison Wallace

More wake and funeral services

An all-night wake for Lyle Eagle Tail starts at 5 p.m. Friday in Rapid City at the Mother Butler Center, 221 Knollwood Drive. Funeral services will be held 10 a.m. Saturday at the same location. Serenity Funeral Home in Rapid City is handlingarrangements. A separate benefit fund has been set up in the name of Eagle Tail and Madison Wallace at Sioux Falls area Wells Fargo banks. The funeral home can be reached at 718-3900.

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Madison Wallace was born with a disability, but died a hero.

At a memorial service Tuesday evening for the 16-year-old Vermillion High School sophomore, those who knew her best said she overcame the challenges of high-functioning autism through kindness, faith in God and a will to serve others.

“She wanted more than anything to connect with those around her, and she did that through her actions,” said her grandmother, Margaret Knaphus.

Wallace died after she and 28-year-old Lyle Eagle Tail jumped into the icy Big Sioux River to rescue her younger brother on Thursday, an act Wallace’s seminary teacher called “two perfect actions by two imperfect people.”

The inside of the meeting hall of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Vermillion was decorated with 1,000 origami ducks for Wallace’s funeral, all folded by her fellow Vermillion High students. A memorial room displayed photos and certificates from her academic and extracurricular life, surrounded by flowers sent from several high schools in the region.

'Treasured memories'

A line of teens formed at a separate table, where friends wrote messages on slips of colored paper and placed them in a small box labeled “Treasured Memories of Madison.”

Wallace was born in Orem, Utah, the first of six children, Knaphus said during the ceremony in the overflowing chapel. She read a “life sketch” that had been written by Wallace’s mother.

Her parents learned early that she was an unusual child: Quiet, well-mannered and determined, but not cuddly.

“Instead of hugs, she showed her zest for life by what she did for others,” Knaphus said. “She was a gifter.”

Wallace would use what little money she would save from her own birthday to buy supplies for handmade cards, origami, sewing projects or storybooks to give her siblings and parents at their birthdays.

Determination marked each new task or undertaking, Knaphus said.

At age 8, she was the only girl on her baseball team. She took lessons before and after school as a young child to improve her reading, and worked hard to hone her skills on the French horn, which helped earn her a scholarship to the South Dakota Youth Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Strong faith

Her devotion was greatest to her faith. Wallace often was found reading Scriptures by flashlight in the bedroom closet as her siblings slept, Knaphus said.

Lidia Dotson, the teen’s seminary teacher, said that memory fit with her impression of Wallace. Seminary is a daily devotional class for Mormon teens that takes place before the normal school day, and Dotson recalled seeing Wallace and her brother arriving 10 to 15 minutes early each morning.

“With my own kids, it could be a battle to get them to seminary,” Dotson said.

The questions from Wallace were simple, but pointed and sometimes difficult, she said, forcing Dotson to “reach deep” to find answers to satisfy her.

One week ago, Wallace taught her students Revelations 20, which talks of the dead being judged for what they had done, and of names written in the Book of Life. Dotson wept as she recalled writing the verses on her white board and thinking of Wallace’s own trip into the afterlife.

“All is well with her,” Dotson said. “She was where she needed to be. She was good with God.”

Wallace’s body will return to Utah, where another memorial will be held for her family. She will be buried there.